Friday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your long weekend reading.

- Umair Haque theorizes that the relatively benign outcome of the U.S.' recent election reflects a public that's finally rejecting Trumpism. But Krystal Ball notes that some of the most important Democratic success stories (notably including John Fetterman) included a message based on the recognition that government can use its power to help people, rather than a weary position that elections can't accomplish more than minimizing the damage inflicted by the other side.

- Ryan Patrick Jones and Nicole Brockbank list the well-connected landowners who stand to be enriched by Doug Ford's plan to turn protected greenbelt land into developers' profits. And Dale Smith points out that Ford's gratuitous use of the notwithstanding clause to attack workers out of sheer impatience and stubbornness signals that all human rights are at risk.

- Gaby Galvin offers a reminder that publicly-funded stadiums seldom accomplish anything other than to funnel money to a city's best-connected business figures. And Paul Dechene discusses how a push to put an arena downtown is leading Regina into another round of discarding social benefits in favour of corporate playthings. 

- Finally, Yasmine Ghania reports on the John Howard Society's push for the provincial government to invest in the social issues at the root of crime. But Adam Hunter reports that the Moe government is instead bent on establishing more - and more politically-controlled - police and security forces even when all available evidence points to an absence of benefit for the cost.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Drew Brown discusses how the Libs' claim to represent - or even understand - the interests of Canada's middle class is disappearing. And Steven Chase and Robert Fife expose Bill Morneau's broken promise to set up a blind trust for his assets while he makes decisions which will affect their value, while the Canadian Press reports that the consulting firm bearing Morneau's name (and in which he still holds a stake) will profit from the unwinding of Sears' pension plan.

- Paul Finch, Jared Melvin and Harpinder Sandhu suggest that land value taxes and closed loopholes could alleviate British Columbia's affordability crisis.

- Jen Gerson views Naheed Nenshi's reelection in Calgary as a much-needed rebuke to attempts by professional sports franchises to blackmail municipalities.

- Kathryn Blaze Baum discusses some of the considerations behind a possible tax on sugary drinks - though the UK's model of merely allowing their manufacturers to profit in different ways hardly seems to be the best possible outcome.

- Finally, Kate McInturff studies the best and worst places to be a woman in Canada. And Anne Kingston offers some ideas to close the persistent gender gap.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- George Eaton discusses how some U.S. state governments are taking steps to fight inequality with taxes at the top of the income scale.

- The Canadian Coalition for Tax Fairness is coming together to push for a tax system where everybody pays their fair share (including changes far beyond those put on the table by the Trudeau Libs), while the Council of Canadians lends its support to the effort. And R. Sacha Bhatia suggests that if doctors prefer being salaried employees to being paid fees for services under a tax system without massive loopholes, that move may be best for everybody involved.

- Shannon Daub and Zoe Yunker highlight how the B.C. Libs outsourced the writing of their climate change policy to the Calgary oil sector. And that history of corporate ownership of government is exactly why the NDP's move to replace big money with public investment in politics figures to be so important.

- Meanwhile, Laurie Monsebraaten reports on the challenge of getting people to believe that a basic income actually comes without strings attached after decades of welfare scolding.

- Barrie McKenna responds to the Calgary Flames' demand for a publicly-funded arena to funnel profits into Murray Edwards' hands by pointing out the lack of any public benefit to doing so.

- Finally, Fay Faraday writes that due to pay inequity, Canadian women are effectively working for free for the balance of the calendar year.

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Josh Bivens explains why increased fairness would likely lead to improved overall growth for the U.S.' economy:

(O)ne key driver of slow productivity growth in recent years can be fixed: the remaining shortfall between aggregate demand and the economy’s productive potential. Running the economy far below potential for a long time has led to insufficient investment to sustain rapid productivity growth. One way to close this accumulated investment gap is, of course, to simply have fiscal policymakers boost public investment. And this should indeed be a response.

But another crucial response is to ensure that the labor market and wider economy run hot enough to force businesses to boost investment simply to meet growing demand. When this is done, policymakers also need to keep the recovery strong until real wages begin consistently rising. From a policy perspective this means keeping interest rates low and not prematurely raising them due to misguided fears of inflation. The inflationary impact of a pick-up in real wages is likely to be quite muffled by the faster investment and productivity growth that will follow.

As with all macroeconomic predictions, this one about productivity rising to meet wage growth could be wrong. But the downside risk of being wrong is relatively small; a couple of years of above-target price inflation as wages push up costs. Given the many years of below-target inflation, one hesitates to even call this a “downside” of a policy that has the economy going for growth. The downside risk of reining in demand before we even test the virtuous cycle of rising wages leading to rising productivity growth, however, is enormous. The decline in potential output for 2017 between what was forecast in 2007 and what is estimated now is almost $2 trillion. If half of this—$1 trillion—could be clawed back through a policy that runs the economy hot and leads to higher productivity growth, it will be an extraordinarily consequential policy choice.

- André Magnan and Annette Aurélie Desmarais examine farmland investment patterns in Saskatchewan and find that outside money is making land unaffordable for residents.

- Jason Warick discusses not only Saskatchewan's missed opportunity to build a sovereign wealth fund, but also the choices which have frittered away a boom - including $6.6 billion in tax cuts which have accomplished nothing useful. And CBC highlights the workers who are now paying the price for Brad Wall's bad governance, while also reporting that Regina is on the hook for millions more than planned to finish the stadium which Wall saw as more important than providing for Saskatchewan's people.

- Meanwhle, the CCPA studies Justin Trudeau's privatization plans while questioning why he's determined to double the price of infrastructure in order to enrich Bay Street. And Emma Gilchrist discusses the long-term costs of Christy Clark's Site C dam boondoggle.

- Finally, Sophia Harris reports on the stock option loophole left open by the Libs, while wondering whether this year's budget will see a sorely needed change toward collecting revenue from the people who can most afford to contribute it.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- Christopher Majka reviews Henry Mintzberg's Rebalancing Society as a noteworthy discussion of the need for balance between the public, private and "plural" sectors. And David Madland is pleased to see the U.S.' Democrats finally fighting back against the view that the corporate sector is the only one worth favouring through government.

- But there's far more to be done in putting the public back in public policy - particularly when, as Bill Tieleman points out, we're being asked to accept more and more strict "trade" agreements designed to ensure that democracy can't overcome corporate interests.

- Barrie McKenna writes about the absurdity of using public money to generate profits for private sports teams.

- Anne Kingston reports on a bizarre new set of conflict of interest rules the Cons have imposed on employees of Natural Resources Canada - where employees with such risk factors as friends in the workplace or an academic background are apparently seen as more of a priority for targeting than those actively lobbying for the oil industry. And the Vancouver Observer exposes the "delusional" Enbridge argument that First Nations are prepared to abandon their territories to the ravages of the Northern Gateway pipeline.

- Trevor Timm wonders whether the "tough on crime" theme has run its course in the U.S. - though once again if the rest of the world is headed toward policy aimed at achieving results rather than designating and bashing political enemies, the Cons will be the last to acknowledge the change.

- Finally, Dan Taekema and the CP each report on a much-needed court challenge to Bill C-51. And the CP also notes that by the RCMP's own account, the establishment of a secret police force may make us less safe.

New column day

Here, looking at the sad similarities between Regina and Detroit, and noting that the crucial step we should take to avoid the latter's humanitarian tragedy is to fund our commitments to workers and residents while we have the means to do so.

For further reading...
- Tom McKay and Wallace Turbeville each discuss how the decision to run Detroit under corporate principles made a bad financial situation far worse.
- Jon Swaine reports on the recent move to shut off water for up to 100,000 residents. Monica Davey writes about the vote to slash already-meager pensions. And Dominic Rushe reports on the city's new arena costs, while Bill Bradley highlights the absurdity of a bankrupt city nonetheless finding a way to shovel free money toward a billionaire sports team owner. 
- Finally, CBC reports on the threatened termination of the City of Regina's pension plan. And the Leader-Post weighs in on the need to actually address the issue - though its contrast between workers and beneficiaries and the "longsuffering taxpayer" (who was apparently supposed to fund a new stadium without having that suffering taken into account) seems to me to signal the wrong desired outcome.

Sunday Morning Links

This and that for your Sunday reading.

- Peter Buffett rightly questions the trend toward making the provision of basic necessities subordinate to a corporate mindset, rather than putting human needs first:

As more lives and communities are destroyed by the system that creates vast amounts of wealth for the few, the more heroic it sounds to “give back.” It’s what I would call “conscience laundering” — feeling better about accumulating more than any one person could possibly need to live on by sprinkling a little around as an act of charity.

But this just keeps the existing structure of inequality in place. The rich sleep better at night, while others get just enough to keep the pot from boiling over. Nearly every time someone feels better by doing good, on the other side of the world (or street), someone else is further locked into a system that will not allow the true flourishing of his or her nature or the opportunity to live a joyful and fulfilled life.

And with more business-minded folks getting into the act, business principles are trumpeted as an important element to add to the philanthropic sector. I now hear people ask, “what’s the R.O.I.?” when it comes to alleviating human suffering, as if return on investment were the only measure of success. Microlending and financial literacy (now I’m going to upset people who are wonderful folks and a few dear friends) — what is this really about? People will certainly learn how to integrate into our system of debt and repayment with interest. People will rise above making $2 a day to enter our world of goods and services so they can buy more. But doesn’t all this just feed the beast?

I’m really not calling for an end to capitalism; I’m calling for humanism. 

- And Moises Velasquez-Manoff discusses the inherent and destructive stress involved in living in poverty:

Although professionals may bemoan their long work hours and high-pressure careers, really, there’s stress, and then there’s Stress with a capital “S.” The former can be considered a manageable if unpleasant part of life; in the right amount, it may even strengthen one’s mettle. The latter kills.

What’s the difference? Scientists have settled on an oddly subjective explanation: the more helpless one feels when facing a given stressor, they argue, the more toxic that stressor’s effects.

That sense of control tends to decline as one descends the socioeconomic ladder, with potentially grave consequences. Those on the bottom are more than three times as likely to die prematurely as those at the top. They’re also more likely to suffer from depression, heart disease and diabetes. Perhaps most devastating, the stress of poverty early in life can have consequences that last into adulthood.
...
A nurturing bond with a caregiver in a stimulating environment appears essential for proper brain development and healthy maturation of the stress response. That sounds easy enough, except that such bonds, and the broader social networks that support them, are precisely what poverty disrupts. If you’re an underpaid, overworked parent — worried, behind on rent, living in a crime-ridden neighborhood — your parental skills are more likely to be compromised. That’s worrisome given the trends in the United States. About one in five children now lives below the poverty line, a 35 percent increase in a decade. Unicef recently ranked the United States No. 26 in childhood well-being, out of 29 developed countries. When considering just childhood poverty, only Romania fares worse.

-Vanessa Brcic calls for British Columbia to restore the Therapeutics Initiative as a sorely-needed fair arbiter of drug effectiveness. The Star pleads for somebody to take on long-term responsibility for the Experimental Lakes Area. And Stephen LaRose points to Winnipeg as a prime example of the (nonexistent) returns when a civic government prioritizes big-money sports and entertainment over actual needs.

- Finally, Haroon Siddiqui holds out some hope that Chris Alexander might revisit some of Jason Kenney's most damaging moves as Minister of Immigration (though I'd add "employer-driven" to his overall freeze proposal):

Kenney’s changes have not been popular, have not worked, have not reduced backlogs and have not improved the system — indeed, have made a mess of it.

We are bringing 250,000 immigrants a year and tens of thousands of guest workers when 1.3 million Canadians don’t have jobs, another million are underemployed or have given up looking for work, and the unemployment rate for both the young as well as new immigrants is twice the national average. Of the immigrants who do have jobs, three in four are not using the education and skills for which they were picked as immigrants.

Perversely, the temporary foreign workers program (which brought in at least 500,000 workers) grew even as the economy slowed down. Kenney’s mantra of “skills shortages” has been shown to be a bit of a fraud. As the Star’s Nicholas Keung reported Tuesday, for example, Canada imported more than 6,000 temps as chefs and cooks in 2011, when Canadian colleges are churning out culinary graduates in record numbers.
...
All this brings me, Mr. Alexander, to ask you this:

Tell us why you should not freeze immigration until the job picture improves, both for them and Canadians; axe the temporary foreign workers program; restore health benefits to refugees; stop the shameful treatment of the Roma; and why your government that emphasizes family values is being so punitive toward the family reunification of immigrant families.

Saturday Morning Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Ray Grigg explains how Idle No More and other decentralized social movements may make for a crucial counterweight to the Harper Cons and their command-and-control philosophy:

Systems are always bigger and more complex than the individuals who try to control them. So political systems, like ecological ones, can be influenced and guided for a while by the stringent and obsessive management of details, but the intricate convolutions within their countless interacting parts eventually expose the futility of such effort. This is now becoming apparent in the present Conservative government in Canada under the authoritative - some say autocratic - leadership of Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

The Prime Minister is known for his propensity to control, a predilection that includes his caucus, parliament and the research studies from every scientist in the employ of the federal government. All information is vetted through his office, the PMO, to be certain it conforms to the message and the image he wants to portray of himself as a rational and competent manager of the nation's business. But this strategy ultimately fails because even the most fastidious control can never match the complexity of systems. Like trying to prevent water from flowing downhill, pressures build, leaks occur, the ground saturates, and the whole containment effort finally collapses.
...
The Idle No More movement is so diverse and amorphous that it will be difficult to control by the Prime Minister and his powerful PMO. Such a vague and unfocused opponent will be an elusive target for Stephen Harper's vindictiveness. A restless and evolving movement with a wide range of demands will be impossible to manipulate with his secretive strategies. So Stephen Harper's suspicious nature will be forced to confront a dilemma of his own making. Charisma is not going to solve this problem. And if frustration should activate the morose streak in his character, he can stew in it until the end of First Nations' patience - which could be a very long time.

- Murray Mandryk criticizes David Marit's recitation of the Cons' message in his rare dissent from Saskatchewan's electoral boundaries commission report. But the more significant follow-up point looks to be the continued use of unsourced and misleading robocalls to push the Cons' talking points.

- CBC reports on the history of public spending on stadium projects - with the unsurprising conclusion being that the public generally doesn't gain anything from its massive expenditures.

- Straight Goods notes that a private surgery clinic which was supposed to be Alberta's health care panacea just a decade ago is now bankrupt - with the public picking up the bill to keep services running as the operators have no interest in treating patients under the terms of their existing contracts. [Update: a reader notes that SG's version of the story looks to be a reprint from 2010.]

- Finally, Trish Hennessy follows up on this week's Statistics Canada figures on inequality by running the numbers on Canada's privileged class.

Monday Morning Links

Assorted content to start your week.

- Maude Barlow offers some background to the Common Causes protests happening across Canada this week:

Over the last two years, we have witnessed amazing organizing and mobilizing in Canada -- from student movements in Québec, to the “Defend Our Coast” struggle against tar sands pipelines in British Columbia, to scientists speaking out against the “Death of Evidence,” to the environmental community standing together through the “Black Out Speak Out” campaign. Courageous doctors have stepped forward to challenge the attacks on refugee benefits, and librarians and archivists have marched to save our collective history. Workers are fighting for their rights. First Nations have taken direct action through the “Idle No More” movement, and Chief Theresa Spence of the Attawapiskat First Nation launched a hunger strike to protest unjust omnibus bills.

The time has come for Canada-wide coordinated action against the Harper government's agenda, which is fundamentally changing our society and our country. Common Causes will work to support the many mobilizations and campaigns that already exist, but also to create a strategic, coordinated plan to ensure that the Harper agenda is stopped at the next election and replaced with a progressive alternative. Common Causes will work cross-sectorally, locally, provincially and nationally to create an extended network for solidarity, resistance, action and change. Through this coordination, we will shape priorities for common action and maximum impact.

- And if we're looking for reasons to protest, the Cons have offered up a couple of noteworthy ones - including their suppression of details about oil spills caused by neglect in oversight, the presumably-related departure of an environment commissioner who found no apparent value in highlighting issues for a government which wouldn't listen, and their advertising to tell potential Roma refugees in Hungary they're not welcome in Canada.

- But while taking to the streets, we should make sure to focus on what we can plausibly accomplish. And Murray Dobbin seems to be headed in entirely the wrong direction - demanding a one-time electoral reform pact with little prospect of success, while ignoring the reality that a two-year gap in progressive work on substantive policy will only facilitate the rightward drift he takes as a given.

- Finally, it's good to see plenty of much-needed pushback against the City of Regina's plans to shut down the pool and recreation facilities which actually allow citizens to gather and keep fit while pouring millions upon millions of dollars into a new site for passive viewing purposes.

Saturday Afternoon Links

Assorted content for your weekend reading.

- Raz Godelnik challenges the all-too-conventional wisdom that corporations (and indeed individuals) should see tax avoidance and evasion as virtues:

One of the most common arguments is that the tax-avoidance techniques used by corporations like Starbucks or Google are legal and therefore they’re not to be blamed, but the tax systems that make them possible.

Apparently these techniques are indeed legal, but here are couple of other things that are legal, such as: cutting down trees in rainforests, sourcing blood minerals from Congo, working with suppliers in China that release hazardous materials into rivers or with factories in Bangladesh that put their employees in jeopardy, or not paying for externalities. Yet, we have expectations from companies that call themselves responsible to do more than just comply with the law in these cases – after all, it is widely assumed that CSR begins where the law ends. So why should tax payments be any different?

Bottom line: While tax systems should be revised, legality is no excuse for not doing the right thing, no matter if you’re talking about natural resources, working conditions or tax payments.

- Bill Tieleman discusses the impending corporate ad blitz against the B.C. NDP - with plenty of federal Lib links featuring prominently among a group dedicated to keeping a progressive party out of power at all costs.

- I'm not sure the minimal contribution of the private sector and the Saskatchewan Roughriders to the cost of a new stadium should come as much surprise. But Paul Dechene is duly outraged at the fact that the public is absorbing nearly the full risk and cost of the stadium - while even the remote possibility of a substantial deal for naming rights won't lead to any public benefit.

- Finally, Susan Delacourt observes that a governing party shouldn't gratuitously play politics at every single opportunity - a statement noteworthy mostly for the fact that the Harper Cons have raised the possibility of an opposing viewpoint being applied by our current government. And in a related vein, Aaron Wherry makes the case for independent thought from MPs:

We should, in the first place, probably assume that if an individual has been able to win election he or she possesses some basic reading skills and so there is little need for MPs to publicly prove their literacy by standing in the House to recite their party’s talking points. Indeed, there is little more depressing about our democracy than the rote recitation of sentences crafted by 20-something and 30-something party apparatchiks that many of the grown men and women we elect are asked to perform on a daily basis as seemingly the central purpose of their existence here. A certain uniformity and consistency of views is to be expected—it may even assist in the general coherence and understanding of what the parties stand for and represent—but the MP’s primary purpose should not be to spread the good word and attest to the gloriousness of their leader. They should not merely be party news releases made flesh and blood.

Mr. Rathgeber’s distinguishing characteristic is that he has a blog, on which he periodically expresses thoughts that do not seem to have been screened by his party leadership. This should not seem a revolutionary initiative.

Indeed, this should be our wish: more indications that our MPs exist as something other than tools of their parties. They needn’t start going rogue and spilling secrets and condemning their leaders. At least not right away. (And it is, it should be noted, possible to both stridently support the party line and act like a human being while doing so.) But a little less of the rote recitation and repetition and a little more of the using one’s own voice to articulate an opinion or thought would certainly go a long way toward making it a little bit easier to watch our politics get made this year.

On upcoming decisions

Others have rightly taken umbrage at the use of this weekend's Saskatchewan Roughriders game to try to push a new stadium on Regina voters. But while I'll agree the 'Riders' move was unseemly, it's at least arguably within the mandate of a privately-controlled organization which stands to get what amounts to a massive subsidy to advocate on behalf of a benefit for itself.

In contrast, the City of Regina has no business whatsoever advocating for one position over another in the elections which will choose representatives who are supposed to be able to make the City's decisions, nor declaring that the election is irrelevant to the City's eventual choices. Which means that the most alarming statement on a new stadium from the past weekend is this one:

Brent Sjoberg, Regina's chief financial officer and stadium project lead, said the option of renovating Mosaic Stadium was taken off the table when the province indicated it would not chip in funding. The city then decided to move forward with a "prudent" plan to build a new stadium with the least impact to city coffers.

He dismisses the argument that an adequate financial plan has not been presented to the public, adding the city has been transparent throughout the process by providing the true costs of the new facility.

"(I'm) comfortable with it so far. From my perspective, I've heard (the plan is) on balance," Sjoberg says. "Of course not everybody agrees, and that's fine. That's how communities work. But ultimately the new council will make some decisions in the coming months to say that yes, they believe this plan and all the elements are the right ones to move forward with."

Now, I presume Sjoberg hasn't actually been provided with an advance copy of this week's election results. But he seems to be trying to say that it doesn't much matter who gets elected - that some combination of the previous council and the city administration has made the decision, and that the sole role for our new elected representatives will be to rubber-stamp it.

Needless to say, a City employee is in no position to make that call for himself if voters decide otherwise. And Sjoberg's combined attempt to both swing the election and declare it irrelevant should offer Regina's citizens an obvious reason to elect councillors who have a rather more appropriate view of how representative government works.

[Edit: fixed formatting.]

#withoutanewstadium

I've written plenty about Regina's municipal election over the past few days. But I'll take some time to encourage readers to join the conversation as early voting approaches.

With the City having released a stadium design concept at the start of the election campaign, it's been far too easy to fall into the trap of assuming that it's both a reality and a done deal. But it should be fairly simple to take to Twitter and offer some reminders that there's plenty we can do in Regina...#withoutanewstadium.

So how can we put the hashtag to good use? Well, here are a few suggestions.

First, by contrasting the current council's stadium obsession against other policy choices...

We could start building needed housing *now* #withoutanewstadium

We'll be able to save public money for far better purposes #withoutanewstadium

Second, with a dose of humour...

ZOMG!!! #withoutanewstadium, the #riders will TOTALLY move to *FLIN FLON*!

However will we teach young Reginans about "cost overruns" #withoutanewstadium?

And finally, as a response to the constant flow of business jingoism which so conveniently neglects the fact that our current stadium isn't exactly standing between Regina and the corporate community's goals either:

2668 jobs on saskjobs for yqr #withoutanewstadium

Riders generate $82 million impact annually - and #withoutanewstadium!

Of course, there are other important issues to be dealt with in the campaign as well. And I certainly hope readers and voters will take them into account at the polls.

But the most immediate choice facing for our municipal representatives is whether to let proponents of a new stadium buy their way to the front of the line while more important issues are left unaddressed. And it's long past time to recognize that Regina can keep thriving #withoutanewstadium.

On blurred lines

In today's Leader-Post, John Hopkins responds to this week's column. But while he tries to point some fingers away from the Regina Chamber of Commerce, he only raises larger issues as to the relationship between the Chamber and the City.

In effect, Hopkins argues that it wasn't the Chamber that copied the City's "Regina Votes" theme, but the other way around. (Which is difficult to verify, as archives seem to be rather sparse in trying to track down the history of both sites.)

But of course, that doesn't address the use of what's unmistakably a City logo (and indeed, now an updated one) on the Chamber's site. And more importantly, it simply feeds into the concern that we have no way of knowing where our public institutions end and where the Chamber's influence begins.

If the current city administration has indeed copied an election theme from the Chamber, and doesn't see any concern with the Chamber in turn splashing its logo on an advocacy site, all at the same time that the City hawks the Chamber-backed stadium project in the middle of an election campaign which should determine whether or not Regina residents actually want to push ahead...well, that looks all the worse to me as a matter of overall perception and electoral fairness, even if it shifts a bit of the immediate blame from the Chamber to the City.

At higher levels of government, similar issues are resolved by drawing clear lines between general administration, electoral oversight and campaigning. But this year's campaign is only highlighting a glaring absence of similar protections at the municipal level. And if the Chamber genuinely doesn't see why anybody would be concerned, that probably signals that it sees itself as benefitting from a city administration which hasn't addressed the issue.

[Edit: fixed typo, wording.]

Deep thought

I'm pretty sure the monorail salesmen concerned business interests spending so much money equating "keeping Regina growing" with "sticking Regina with the tab for a new stadium" will start showing their evidence linking the two any day now. Yesiree, any day now...

On single issues

Apparently today is Stadium Cheerleading Day in the Leader-Post. But in correctly noting that this fall's election will be decisive in determining whether a stadium goes ahead, Bruce Johnstone seems to me to give away the real choice voters face:

Of course, this doesn't mean that the stadium is the only issue in the coming municipal election. But it's the biggest single issue to face this council and this city in a generation.

Who isn't in favour of building a new water treatment plant, or fixing the roads or broken watermains, or recycling, or keeping taxes down? The stadium project is the big wedge issue in this campaign that very quickly divides voters into one camp or the other.

Now, it's probably true that few candidates want to admit they couldn't care less about such obvious needs as infrastructure and city services. 

But it's also obvious that the council incumbents mouthing their interest in those subjects have done nothing during their time in office to address them. Which makes for a stark contrast against how the current council has closed ranks and agreed to a long-term tax increase - just as long as it's directed toward the circus rather than bread, water or housing. 

So the question facing voters isn't merely whether to approve of a stadium, but whether to endorse a council which sees no other priorities as worth anywhere near the same level of time and effort. And I'll argue that anybody who can't see more important problems facing the city which deserve more attention can be dismissed as a viable candidate on that basis alone.

New column day

Here, on how Regina City Council's attempt to use the same old spin to sell yet another stadium plan (which leaves most of the cost and all of the risk with the city) might be the breaking point for public trust in then current Councillors.

For further reading...

The provincial stadium concept review rejecting an open-air stadium is here, and referred to with approval both in a subsequent feasibility study, and in Pat Fiacco's own pitch to the federal government. And the proposed funding model in the Regina Revitalization Initiative can be compared to the terms the city eventually settled for.

Update: Meanwhile, Pat Atkinson has her own concerns about the debt associated with the funding model. And Maurice Tougas offers some lessons from Edmonton's arena experience.

Wednesday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading.

- Zach Carter shines a spotlight on the few types of interests who stand to gain from austerity:

But the austerity game also has winners. Cutting or eliminating government programs that benefit the less advantaged has long been an ideological goal of conservatives. Doing so also generates a tidy windfall for the corporate class, as government services are privatized and savings from austerity pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest citizens.
...
"Austerity policies are literally a redistribution from the bottom of the income spectrum to the top," said Dorian Warren, a professor of political science at Columbia University and a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, an economic policy think tank. "In Wisconsin, both wealthy people and businesses got tax breaks, while middle-class and working-class employees of the state essentially got crushed."

Warren emphasized that there are political dimensions to the austerity push. Efforts to curb collective bargaining rights -- and thus pay and benefits -- for state employees cut to the heart of the American labor movement. With only 7 percent of the private-sector workforce unionized, public-sector unions are a critical component of labor's political influence and an important bloc in Democratic Party operations.

Governments in Europe, most notably the United Kingdom, have also pursued tax cuts for the rich while imposing austerity measures on the working classes. And the European financier class has benefited even more directly than their American counterparts from these budgets.

Every time the European Union has reached a crisis point on the debt carried by Greece or Spain, EU leaders, especially German Chancellor Angela Merkel, have come to the rescue with bailout funds. That money goes to the banks that own Greek and Spanish debt, whose holdings would take a hit if either country were unable to repay. But the bailout comes with harsh austerity requirements intended to encourage budgetary discipline, so it's ordinary citizens who end up taking the hit. The most vulnerable populations are harmed by the bailouts, while the well-paid financial professionals who made the deals to finance Greek and Spanish deficits in the first place continue profiting handsomely.

- Chris Hedges recognizes the need for thoughtful questioning of self-serving "conventional wisdom":

And here is the dilemma we face as a civilization. We march collectively toward self-annihilation. Corporate capitalism, if left unchecked, will kill us. Yet we refuse, because we cannot think and no longer listen to those who do think, to see what is about to happen to us. We have created entertaining mechanisms to obscure and silence the harsh truths, from climate change to the collapse of globalization to our enslavement to corporate power, that will mean our self-destruction. If we can do nothing else we must, even as individuals, nurture the private dialogue and the solitude that make thought possible.

- Erin Weir makes the point that massive potash profits only confirm that Saskatchewan is forfeiting massive amounts of public wealth to the Saskatchewan Party's corporate benefactors. And Tom Shelstad notes that a reasonable royalty regime would provide ample money to fund projects like a Regina stadium up front - rather than requiring the city to take on decades of debt.

- Meanwhile, the Star-Phoenix editorial board is duly skeptical about the Wall government's pretending to listen to cultural industries only after driving them out of the province.

- Finally, I've tended to view Regina's housing crisis as a significant issue demanding a policy response. But apparently I should have known it was nothing more than a charming human interest story all along. (I'm just surprised the featuredidn't end with a down-on-his luck new arrival marrying the campground manager's daughter.)

On rubber stamps

There's been plenty of coverage from last night's Regina City Council meeting, with more surely to come. But aside from the complete refusal of any current Council member to respond to the concerns of the delegations who suggested giving citizens some say in a stadium proposal, perhaps the most striking comment is this one:

Audience members groaned with Clipsham (when he) said the city isn't ready for a referendum because "we don't know what we're voting on."

Which raises a rather obvious question: what exactly is there for Council to ram through (and the Premier and Mayor to hold PR stunts about) if we don't know what the plan actually entails? And given that a Council vote is no less binding than a referendum result, wouldn't we expect our elected representatives to actually ferret out some answers before offering their approval?

Monday Morning Links

Miscellaneous material to start your week.

- Joe Stiglitz discusses the link between increased inequality and the U.S.' economic frailty:

Any solution to today's problems requires addressing the economy's underlying weakness: a deficiency in aggregate demand. Firms won't invest if there is no demand for their products. And one of the key reasons for lack of demand is America's level of inequality — the highest in the advanced countries.

Because those at the top spend a much smaller portion of their income than those in the bottom and middle, when money moves from the bottom and middle to the top (as has been happening in America in the last dozen years), demand drops. The best way to promote employment today and sustained economic growth for the future, therefore, is to focus on the underlying problem of inequality. And this better economic performance in turn will generate more tax revenue, improving the country's fiscal position.
...
Countries with high inequality tend to underinvest in their collective well-being, spending too little on such things as education, technology and infrastructure. The wealthy don't need public schools and parks. That's another reason economies with high inequality grow more slowly. Indeed, the United States has grown much more slowly since the 1980s, while inequality has been growing more rapidly than it did in the decades after World War II, when the country grew together.

Public investments are of particular importance today; they increase demand in the short run and productivity in the medium to long term. Increasing public investment would help make up for continued weakness in the private sector. Investments in training for new jobs could facilitate the economy's structural transformation, helping it move from sectors with declining employment (like manufacturing) to more dynamic sectors. Strengthening education would help restore the American dream and help make the country once again a land of opportunity where the talents of our young people are fully utilized.

The right says that we can achieve greater equality only by belt-tightening. But that vision would result in a slowdown of the economy from which all would suffer. Because so much of America's inequality arises from rent-seeking and other activities that distort the economy, curtailing inequality would actually strengthen the economy. Investing public money in the collective good rather than allowing it to be captured by rent-seekers would enhance growth at the same time it reduced inequality.

- Meanwhile, Dan Leger highlights the desperate need to properly regulate the financial system:

Carney has the option of using his bully pulpit to call for sweeping change in financial regulations. No doubt any attempt at major reform will present enormous political complications because of the global nature of banking. But it must be tackled.

If it isn’t, we’ll just have repeats of the crises now dragging down the world economy.

That’s why this has to go beyond the central bankers and academics and into the political realm. Governments have to put the financiers on account and they have to hit wrongdoers where it hurts, in their fortunes and their freedom.

Beyond that, states that benefit from the global commerce in money, including Canada, must fix what’s wrong. Carney and his peers have that challenge: to lead change that will actually make a difference in the tainted world of global money.

- Karen Howlett and Bill Curry report on a rare example of public outcry changing a politician's mind, as Christy Clark has been forced to stop pushing the Gateway pipeline on a province which is broadly opposed to the risks involved.

- That said, it remains to be seen whether a similar effort can come together in a short time frame in advance of today's Regina City Council meeting. But recent letters to the editor from Mark Cote and Marc Spooner are worth a read.

- Finally, there's a bit of good news on the accuracy-of-news front, as the CRTC has backed off plans to stop regulating the deliberate broadcasting of false news.

On failed strategies

Let's follow up with one more point from Bruce Johnstone's attempt to justify ramming through a stadium deal without any serious public input - which speaks less to the stadium project than to the bona fides of the politicians who are pushing it:

Is it perfect? No, because unlike some places, like Texas or Indiana, we don't have rich sugar daddies, like Jerry Jones, who helped bankroll the $1-billion-plus Cowboys Stadium in Dallas or Forrest Lucas of Lucas Oil, who bought the naming rights for Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis for $121 million.

Roughriders football fans, Saskatchewan taxpayers, in general, and Regina property taxpayers, in particular, will have to foot the bill for the $278-million project.
...

Given that we have precious few rich patrons or private companies that want to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on sports stadiums, governments are generally on the hook when the time comes to build or renovate sports and recreation facilities.

Now, Johnstone is right in saying that none of the private-sector actors who have been constantly courted by both Pat Fiacco's city administration and Brad Wall's provincial government has shown an iota of interest in contributing the legacy project both have long demanded. But let's question why that's still the case.

By all indications, Saskatchewan's corporate sector has been handed anything it could have possibly asked for and more over the past few years. Wall has offered to pay effectively the entire cost of any resource-sector operator's head office in exchange for the privilege of having it located in Saskatchewan. And Regina (like most municipalities) has then doubled down with additional tax breaks for businesses who deign to operate within city limits.

So we've tied up hundreds of millions of public dollars in trying to offer a sweet enough deal to attract exactly the type of sugar daddy who might be expected to fund projects like the stadium plan. And both Wall and Fiacco appear to have concluded that their efforts are a failure - meaning that we'll be on the hook for hundreds of millions more to make up for the corporate community spirit that hasn't materialized as promised.

Of course, one could argue that the problem is simply one of time - that we'll need to wait for BHP Billiton, Mosaic and others to actually put down roots in Saskatchewan's cities before we can expect them to offer any support for community projects. But it would be downright absurd to push ahead with a new stadium on the public dime now if we can expect there to be genuine private-sector funding (in the sense of contributions, not mere laundering through a P3 structure) in just a few years.

Instead, it seems more likely that Wall and Fiacco have just now reached a conclusion that seemed obvious to some of us from the beginning: that banking on the community spirit of mercenaries is a losing proposition. And if we can't count on big-money benefactors to contribute to even the most jingoistic of social projects, then it's about time to take back the goodies which were supposed to lure them here in the first place.